


With Love

by LLReid



Series: Reunited [5]
Category: Bloodbound (Visual Novel)
Genre: Ancient Egypt, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Feminism, Flashback, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Gen, Mortal Kamilah, Multi, Other, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Mindscape, Psychic vampire, Strong Female Characters, Vampires, canon wlw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:21:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22646338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LLReid/pseuds/LLReid
Summary: Anastasia and Kamilah experience a difficult flashback from the ancient vampire’s mortal life.Fic inspired by ‘With Love’ by Christina Grimmie.~~~~~“Sister,” he warned. He was gentle as he tucked a stray strand of Kamilah’s long black hair behind her ear, the eyes that mirrored her own boring into her very soul as she stared back at him through tear blurred eyes. “I am aware of what she has done, but to send others to fight in my place...there would be no greater dishonour or more public display of cowardice.”Kamilah shook her head. “And leaving me alone...is that not just as dishonourable?”“You know as well as I that you are smarter and more capable than a hundred men. I do not fear for you.” He pressed the small wooden toy horse leftover from their childhood into her palm. “You are guarded. You do not show your cards to anyone. There are times that you are impossible to read, and that makes you strong, it makes you powerful. The most important thing you ever did was learn how to survive, and you taught me how to stay alive. Have I ever given you a reason to believe that those lessons were given in vain?”
Relationships: Kamilah Sayeed/Anastasia Swann, Kamilah Sayeed/Cleopatra (Cousins/Rivals), Kamilah Sayeed/Lysimachus Sayeed (Siblings/Best Friends), Kamilah Sayeed/Main Character (Bloodbound)
Series: Reunited [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1608706
Kudos: 47





	With Love

“I must go, sister,” Lysimachus said, softly.

“Must you?!,” Kamilah snapped without turning to look at him. She knew that the moment she tore her eyes away from the Nile as it flowed quietly past her balcony, she would only get upset. As a woman of such high standing she knew the drill, she’d sent warriors off to fight for Egypt for as long as she could remember — half of whom worship at her feet; the other half had already proposed marriage — but she’d seen so little of them return unscathed. In the whole course of history, war had always fallen on the shoulders of the young and healthy. Their lives would be given to pay the debts of the rich, who were always too lazy to pick up a sword and fight in their own battles. Very few things made her happier than getting a rise out of despicable old men and entitled nobles who wanted everyone around them to cower in their presence, so she argued that point whenever she was presented the opportunity to do so, but they never listened to her rational thinking.

She was so fearful that she was staring down yet another loss, and, though she knew that she had to be logical, though she knew how to be logical, she knew the second she turned around Lysimachus would see the stricken look of betrayal on her face and all of the arguments that were threatening to fly away from her. What was history anyway but the lies of the winning few? Why was it worth protecting and bleeding for, when it forgot the starving child under siege, the slave woman on her deathbed, the man lost at sea? It was an imperfect record written by a biased hand, diluted to garner the most agreement from competing parties. She was tempted to make her brother see her point, to imagine that she could realign the past and present and future into something beautiful. Gods, if anyone was capable of it, it would be her...but she knew to try would be a fruitless endeavour. Lysimachus was far more stubborn than she.

Going to war once was understandable. Going twice was the very definition of idiocy. And going three times...well, that was tempting the gods to strike you down.

“You know that I must serve my country and fight in our cousins name—“

“Do not lecture me! I love my country as you do, but everyone can see that Cleopatra is an imbecile intent on handing Egypt over to the Romans. This war is suicide, Lysimachus, you must know this!” She stared ahead at the Nile, focusing the way the blue water-lilies floated on the water and how dust blowing in from the desert covered it with a faint golden sheen even as gray clouds began to gather over them and the current began to gather speed.

“Then I die attempting to restore Egypt to her former glory. There can be no greater honour.”

“You fool! You foolish boy!,” she snarled. At that she span around to see her twin brother standing behind her in his gold plated set of armour. He was only ten minutes older and yet he was everything Kamilah was not, as she was everything he could never dream of being. But they were the same, in all the ways that mattered. “Did father not utter those same words to our mother before he left for battle, never to return again? Did you and I not cry ourselves to sleep for months afterwards? Did you not see how quickly mother died of her broken heart afterwards? Have you learned nothing?”

“Kamilah,” he said, softly. “What would you have me do? Like it or not, Cleopatra is our pharaoh and she has commanded me to serve. I cannot simply decline.”

“You may not be able to but I can. I do not like her.”

“You do not like anyone.”

“That is a lie.”

“Who do you like, then?,” he pressed.

"I like us," she said after a while. "And that is about it. Make no mistake, I am not... I am not without a heart. I am not. I am a woman, which means that I just do not have the same luxury of being soft as you do. I am merely trying to survive.”

He sighed, and for a few moments said nothing. He said absolutely nothing; there was no expression on his face at all. His eyelids were hooded, and she could almost feel the way he was slipping back, away from her, into that place that was his alone. When he spoke, his voice was as lifeless as his face, “We are no longer children. You cannot simply pull her hair or scratch her face until she bleeds to make her bend to your wishes.”

“Watch me,” she huffed. “Our dear cousin cannot be counted on for anything. All of her promises bleed into lies. Mark my words, she will be Egypt’s downfall. Pharaoh or not, I will not bend the knee to her. She has not earned it.”

“Sometimes we have to bend to survive.”

“Perhaps you do. But as a woman, I learned long ago that a soft heart only makes it easier for a knife to slip in. Eventually you too will have to learn that lesson.”

“Sister,” he warned. He was gentle as he tucked a stray strand of Kamilah’s long black hair behind her ear, the eyes that mirrored her own boring into her very soul as she stared back at him through tear blurred eyes. “I am aware of what she has done, but to send others to fight in my place...there would be no greater dishonour or more public display of cowardice.”

Kamilah shook her head. “And leaving me alone...is that not just as dishonourable?”

“You know as well as I that you are smarter and more capable than a hundred men. I do not fear for you.” He pressed the small wooden toy horse leftover from their childhood into her palm. “You are guarded. You do not show your cards to anyone. There are times that you are impossible to read, and that makes you strong, it makes you powerful. The most important thing you ever did was learn how to survive, and you taught me how to stay alive. Have I ever given you a reason to believe that those lessons were given in vain?”

“There is a first time for everything. What good is strength if you have no sense to back it up?” Roughly, she wiped her eyes. “Do not go. I beg you, do not.”

“I do not mean to be such a burden," he whispered. “All I have ever wanted to do was protect you. If Egypt is safe, then you are safe.”

"It is not a burden if people are willing to carry it," she pointed out. “Now is not the time to change yourself to fit into the world. You had no ambitions to fight for Egypt...not until Cleopatra commanded you to lead her armies. War breeds only more war. You should be changing the world by turning your hand to something peaceful— to let you exist as you are, without being cut open and damaged and bleeding for a cause you do not agree with. That is true dishonour, brother.”

“Kamilah—“

“Being different — being simply you instead of what other people want you to be is it's own kind of bravery and honour that you do not have to bleed for.”

“Rome has taken everything from us, Kamilah. What frightens me most is that some part of me understands their reasoning...but they still have taken everything from Egypt. Why should we not be able to take it back if we have the power to? Why should we sit by idly whilst their empire expands and ours crumbles? We owe it to Egypt, to our family who have ruled in this land for generations, and to ourselves to stand up and fight for our homeland and our people.” He sighed. “We have inherited the darkest legacy, but they do not know that we have learned how to thrive in shadows and create our own light. The gods are on our side, sister. We have nothing to fear.”

Kamilah simply stared at her brother. At only twenty years old, his youth was apparent when he spoke of such things. Despite all his brains and rational way of thinking, not even he could resist the draw of war. What was it about horrible, violent things that captured the minds of otherwise sensible young men like him? The anger that had flooded her veins was so pure, she thought it must have turned her blood to acid. You could read a hundred books about the attitudes and beliefs of the past, but the impact of witnessing this casual, ignorant cruelty displayed by the Pharaoh on the brink of war firsthand was like having a bucket of cold water upended over your head. It forced Kamilah to see that the centuries padding the time from when the Egyptian empire had risen and hers, along with simple privilege, had protected her from the true ugliness of it. Sensible people believed this trash, and they were spreading it around like it was nothing, all because their monarch had commanded them to. Like they weren’t even talking about the sacrifice of human life at all.

Strong feelings, especially terror and desperation, leave an imprint on the air that echo back to whoever was unlucky enough to walk through that place again. She had heard some people say life can change in a day, completely flipping your feet over head. But they were wrong. Life did not need a day to change...the seconds it took to utter a handful of words was more than enough time. She could feel her heart breaking, as at that very moment, the person that needed her most and that she needed most was the one who was about to walk away. She was protected. She cared so deep for him that he seemed to live like a second heart inside her. She did not need a protector or a rescuer. But she did need him.

“You owe it to them to live. What good can you do if you are dead?” She sniffled. “Do not go...where I cannot follow, please, please, do not put me through that again. You are all I have in the world.”

“Do you remember what mother used to say: that sometimes just saying something aloud was enought to make it true? There will be nothing to be frightened of soon. This I promise you.”

She was not so sure about that, but she sighed and nodded resolutely, regardless. It was so hard to be the person who got left behind, and never the person who got to do the leaving. It was a man’s world and the life of a woman was rarely ever easy. 

She had the strangest sensation of floating, of drifting farther and farther away with nothing and no one to cling to. She was standing right beside her brother, but the distance between them had split into the kind of canyon she could not jump across. No one, not even one as exceptional as Kamilah, could reason with another person so determined he could barely see straight.

“Stop trying to make me feel better,” Kamilah ordered. “It will not work. I am determined to be angry and disappointed about this for at least another few weeks, and then again when you return and once more when you inevitably leave to face yet another battlefield.”

He gave her a tired smile before leaning in to place a kiss on her forehead. “I will return to you before the seasons change. I give you my word. I would tear this whole damn country apart to make my way back to you.”

————————

“Kami, are you alright?,” Anastasia’s sweet and gentle voice drew Kamilah out of the psychic trance that the younger vampire had placed her into. When she’d volunteered to help her girlfriend practice she hadn’t known which of her memories she would be able to latch onto, and Anastasia was still not refined enough in her control to have any say in the matter.

The ancient vampire simply nodded her head and focused on blue eyes and flame coloured hair, on the familiar feeling of slender fingers entwined with her own. The girl looked so unassuming, petite and feminine and undeniably beautiful. If one didn’t know what she was they wouldn’t think twice about coming at her in a fight, underestimating her at first sight. This girl was the heir of the world’s mightiest bloodline, the protector by birthright of all vampires, her Queen. She was Anastasia Swann — and Kamilah knew that when the time came she would not falter.

For years she’d avoided that one memory of her brother leaving her for the last time, and for years she’d tried telling herself that it was not because of herself, but there were some thoughts that lived in her memory like a chronic disease. She’d thought she’d finally crushed them, that the memory had stopped being painful....but she’d been wrong.

“I will be.” She closed her eyes as she brought Anastasia’s hand to her lips and pressed a kiss on the back of it. She knew that everything that had happened since that moment in her mortal life until that moment then had made her stronger. She was stronger, every if she couldn’t see it at first. But part of her wondered if, in moving outside of the natural flow of time, she had forgotten the most crucial point of life — that it wasn’t meant to be lived for the past, or even the future, but for each present moment. She’d been given the gift of understanding that people can come through struggles and pain. She’d built a new family in place of the one she’d lost. She had learned that life was one journey and the purpose was not to reach some treasure at the end of it, but to find the courage to decide which paths to take, and to let things fall into place as they should and would.

“You sure? Walking through your memories doesn't tell me what's going on inside of your head. No cause, only effect.”

“Indeed. I’m sure.”

“Was that the last time you saw him?,” Anastasia whispered.

Kamilah nodded, tightly. “It takes a sharp blade, a huge effort to separate one half of a coin from the other. It should have taken something a hell of a lot stronger and sharper to separate me from him. Foolish, gentle boy that he was. He was always so busy looking for the good in people, he didn't see the knife they were hiding.” She squeezed Anastasia’s hand. “I used to dream about turning back time, about reclaiming the things I’d lost and the person I used to be. But not anymore. I’m happier now than I’ve been since before that conversation with him took place but it— I wasn’t aware reliving that moment would still feel like rubbing salt into an open wound.”

“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have—“

“No. It is not your doing,” she interjected. “These abilities are still so new to you, the only way you’ll refine your craft is to practice.”

Her powers were unlike anything Kamilah had ever seen before, unlike anything that she had even thought possible. Serafine had called it ‘darkness’, even Anastasia had labelled it dark before truly getting to know the depths of what she was capable of doing. Yet from where Kamilah was standing she could see clearly, it was not darkness at all, but light — light, bright and pure as the sun on snow, that erupted from every ounce of Anastasia’s being. Light. All those who saw it burned with it. Radiated in it. It was light that flowed from the girl’s very soul, her fierce vampire heart as she gave herself over to the power she had been destined to yield for millennia. She became incandescent with it, something more than should’ve been physically possible.

They knew now that in her mortal form Anastasia had been subconsciously controlling her abilities from the moment she was born — in being kept ignorant she had been keeping it dormant. But the moment she had switched from mortal Bloodkeeper to vampire, the moment she got agitated or angry or afraid, the moment she fed into how much her abilities scared her, those abilities would rise up to protect her. The girl had to learn that she was the source of those feelings, not Rheya, not any external threat. When there was an outside threat, when she forgot to fear her powers long enough, that was precisely when she would have the most control over them.

She rested her head on Anastasia’s shoulder and allowed her eyes to fall closed as she held her, seeking the emotional comfort that having her close always seemed to bring. Logically, she knew that nothing Anastasia could say or do would bring Lysimachus back to her, he was somewhere else and nothing anyone could do would bring him home, but being close to her made her heart hurt less somehow. She made her feel brave; she let her be who she was unconditionally, without judgement, and because of it, she felt life shifting around her into something that felt much more beautiful and clearer than it had ever been before.

“I still resent him,” she whispered, shuddering at her own words. It was a truth that she’d carried within her heart since he’d left, never daring to give form. “I love him, still, but I hate him for leaving me.”

Anastasia kissed the top of her head. “Being mad at him doesn’t make you a bad person, you know.”

“Doesn’t it? More than two thousand years have passed and I cannot let go of my anger. If he’d just listened to me— if he’d gotten down from that idiotic noble high horse of his to look at the situation from another angle— I don’t know. I just....I don’t know.”

“You aren’t responsible for what other people do, good or bad. Everyone is just making the choices they think will help them get by. And you’re entitled to have feelings, whatever they happen to be, they don’t make you weak or bad.” She squeezed her hand. “Be thankful for that big heart of yours. Pity those who feel nothing at all.”

“I don’t have it in me to forgive him....not yet.”

“That’s alright, you don’t have to. The thing is...what they don't tell you about forgiveness is this: you don't give it for the other person's sake, but your own. So take your time. Give it only when you’re ready.”

“It’s just not fair,” Kamilah said, perhaps for the first time since she’d been a child who was prone to face-scratching and hair-pulling to get her own way. The statement made her feel far more vulnerable than she would’ve liked, so she buried her face into the warm crook of her girlfriend’s neck. She gave into that feeling. She didn't care what feeling it made her —weak or selfish or stupid or terrible. “None of this is fair.”

“Life isn’t fair, not for any of us,” Anastasia whispered. “It’s taken me a while to get that. It’s always going to disappoint you in some way or another. You’ll make plans, and it’ll push you in another direction. You will love people, and they’ll be taken away no matter how hard you fight to keep them or how good they happen to be. You’ll try your best for something and won’t get it. You don’t always have to find meaning in it; you don’t have to try to change things. You just have to accept the things that are out of your hands and try to take care of yourself in the process. That’s your job. It’s not worth it to weigh what you could have done or should have done when there’s no way of changing it.”

“Do you think the memory of someone should dictate how we live going forward?,” she asked, threading and unthreading their fingers together. It was such an odd question for someone her age to ask someone who’d only experienced a little more than two decades of life, but she valued Anastasia’s opinions and perspectives on everything. The girl had always had a special way of helping her see things clearly.

“It depends,” she said. “My parents forced me to go to church every Sunday when I was growing up and I remember struggling with that question. I don’t know what makes a person who they are, in the end. If we’re all born one way or if we only arrive to who we’re meant to be after a series of choices and heartbreaks. The christian bible claims that the wicked act on their own desires and impulses, because god is good, only good, and he would never compel a soul to wickedness. I can’t tell you how much I struggled to understand this when I was still living with my parents. That I was supposed to just let things be and live the way other people would’ve wanted me to and count on justice in the next life because I couldn’t have it in this one never sat well with me.” She sighed. “I came to my own conclusion when I stopped drinking the KoolAid and I think you can probably honour someone's memory, but you can't live for them, because that means living in the past. You shouldn't — you should never forget. But part of surviving is being able to move on, is being able to let go and make peace with the past whilst continuing to grow from the lessons it taught you.”

“That is...that’s actually very sensible.”

“I’m capable of common sense from time-to-time, thank you very much,” Anastasia huffed, amusement audible in each and every word. “I just keep thinking, the lives you had before — that we all had before we were turned and before we found each other, we can never get them back. But there's a beginning in an end, you know? It's true that you can't reclaim what you had, but you can lock it up behind you. Start fresh. Do better.”

A choked laugh escaped from the back of Kamilah’s throat and a few of her tears spilled down over her cheeks, despite how hard she’d been trying to hold them back. The truth was, she was frightened. Once again she was just as frightened as she had been that one ancient summers day when she’d spoken to her brother for the last time. Perhaps that was the whole point — life showing her how good it could be, letting her have it just long enough to want it more than she’d ever wanted anything else, only to rip it away. When you have nothing by yourself for so long, you forget the terror of having something important to lose. She’d already lost Anastasia once and it had been the single most soul shattering loss that she’d ever experienced. Not even losing Lysimachus had left life looking so dismal.

“You’re trembling, Kami.”

“I...I’m scared,” she whispered. “I hate that I’m so frightened, still. I don’t know how to stop feeling this way. In truth, I think I’ve always felt like this. I buried it for so long but now...now it will not be ignored.”

“It’s okay to be scared. I’d be more worried if you weren’t scared of Rheya...she’s a terrifying woman...and I’m scared, too. Terrified, even. Knowing that when I step out to face her, I’ll step out alone. Knowing I’m the only one powerful enough to defeat her but not knowing how or what’ll come from it...it’s scary. Fire and ash are both calling my name. Whispering words of encouragement, sweet things. It wants out, for me to fan the heat until it’s a vortex that can’t and won’t be stopped...and I’m scared.” 

“I cannot remember another time in my life that was in any way similar to this one,” Kamilah whispered. “That alone is enough to frighten me.”

“I see it in colours, my powers. A deep blue, fading into golds and reds — like fire on a horizon. Afterlight. It’s a sky that wants me to guess if the sun is about to rise or set.” Anastasia sighed, shakily. “Thing is, though, fear is worthless. It stops you when you need to keep moving most, it paralyses you if you feed it. But it only exists inside of your head, the only powers it has are the ones you choose to give it. You can hate yourself for being scared, but that’s still letting it control your life. Aren’t you tired of that same old shit? I know I am. It’s just going to keep dragging us down.”

Kamilah nodded and squeezed Anastasia tightly. Adrian, Lily, Jax, the Five, they all knew the truth of what was riding on the girl’s slender shoulders, but the truth didn’t live inside them the same way it did for the two of them. For the longest time, Kamilah had seen the relationship between herself, Anastasia, Adrian, Lily, and Jax as the end of her journey, but now she believed that they were always meant to represent the beginning of Anastasia’s.

“The crazy thing is, I had all of these plans,” Kamilah whispered. “When you came back to me, I made all of these plans inside my head. What we were going to do. All the places I was going to take you. I never could have anticipated everything that has happened since then.”

The floor to ceiling window of Takeshi’s penthouse breathed in the evening light as dusk broke over Tokyo and she felt Anastasia’s hand trail down the length of her arm. “We’ll be okay, Kami. Nothing will separate us. I just gotta put this bitch back in her grave and then we can go about living the best lives we’re capable of living. We just have to keep moving. If we stop now, I know we would never be able to start again.”

Kamilah laughed, weakly, and the tiniest hint of a genuine smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “I’ve been thinking, and I know this is going to sound unbearably sappy, but if there was one good thing that has come out of all of this...out of my life...it was that I lived long enough to meet you. I would go through it all again—“ Tears pricked her eyes. “I would, as long as it meant I’d met you. I don't do well without you," she said. "Who I was before — I never want to be that person again. But I told you when I turned you that when everything was over, it would be your choice. You would get to choose where you wanted to go and who you wanted to be.”

“The way I see it, you and me? Inevitable. We’re inevitable.” Anastasia smiled. “I love you. With my whole heart. My whole life, however long I’m lucky enough to get, nothing will change for me.”

She smiled and took great comfort in her words. Usually inevitability had its way of making ones such as her — who valued control above all things — incredibly uncomfortable, but thinking of their relationship as inevitable gave her peace...gave her hope. She was still the same Kamilah Sayeed as she’d always been, a girl who’d grown up splashing in the Nile and scratching the face of the infamous Cleopatra when she irritated her, a woman who held a great appreciation for the finer things in life. But the woman in her arms was something else entirely, something more than Vampire, more than just Anastasia. As Kamilah held her she realised that she and Rheya had been forged of the same ore, in the very same way that she and Lysimachus had been — two sides of the same bloody golden dagger.

“I love you, too, Anastasia.”

It seemed that everyone but her beloved Bloodkeeper had far too little an understanding of society’s tendency to repeat its own mistakes over and over again. Kamilah lingered on what the girl had said to her once as she combed her fingers through her hair: that history was everything, that the future could not be divorced from the past. History was everything, for it was in any person’s nature to make the same mistakes over and over — it didn’t matter if they were mortal or vampire or Bloodkeeper. Like Anastasia had told her, all the future was, was the disasters of the past waiting in the shadows...cursed to repeat themselves for eternity.

\- fin.


End file.
